


Forest Lass (Cailín na foraoise)

by Out_Of_Custody



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Soft and Fluffy, arya underfoot, female oc - Freeform, me in dreamland basically, non-canon, obv, post 8x05, really soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 15:04:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18813340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Out_Of_Custody/pseuds/Out_Of_Custody
Summary: [...] watches her ride out when the wolves howl and always come back with a kill that has teeth in its neck rather than an arrow protruding from somewhere, watches her bleed her hands raw over the tree-trunks and branches they heave from the forest to make into home. Their fires are small and barely enough to keep them warm, but none of them have the heart to make them any larger, any brighter or fiercer. They’ve had enough fire and even the young ones, collecting dry branches and the likes, take care around the flames.





	Forest Lass (Cailín na foraoise)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm kind of trying this out for size, because I've had this idea that Flea Bottom would have a language of its own - really, I think, most Kingdowms would have some kind of... dialect of their own, so this is just... a test in a way. A Test with Gendrya fluff, because we need it, I think

 

“Come on!”

She‘s not proud of the way she throws the first kid onto the cart.

“Come with me!”

But the second kid is handed to her and then the third and fourth--

“The South Gate! Go by the South Gate!”

It‘s closest to the waters. And while Arya knows that not even the Narrow Sea can undo Dragon Fire completely, she has hopes it will delay the firey death for at least three more to flee.

“Get out!” she slaps the mule, shoves the people further along the road, “Get out now!”

It‘s the black one who opens his maw first and Arya doesn‘t look – she grabs a horse by the reins as it thunders past her, ears flat and eyes wide – and hauls herself up and away from the heat that swallows Flea Bottom.

 

* * *

 

The sweltering heat follows them for a day, burns their backs and their haunches and none dare to turn their head lest it will burn their faces too. Except, that is, for the young thing on the horse – all high dangerous and _quick_ when a wave of hungry thieves befalls them from a trench. To feed on what they don’t know but the young one is off her horse and in the fight before they can properly scramble and so they see her dance. It’s not a Lady’s dance and it ends with spilt red and last breaths, but when she mounts, it’s so see if there are more of them around. Esther should fear her, maybe. Women like her are always to be feared, but that is before the gentle green of the King’s Forest blankets their tear-stricken trail and the young one on the horse finds them a cave.

“It’ll keep for the night”, she offers the eldest quietly, carefully guiding burnt feet and hands into the mouth of stone.

It’s the men who go hunting, but her who returns with a buck and when Esther sits down to help her skin the thing, she is not surprised to see the precise cuts done already.

“You are not from Flea Bottom”, is the first thing she says when she kneels down to hold the antlers, allowing for an easier time of skinning the animal – the young thing grins with too many teeth and a wild look in her eyes.

“I’m not even from the South, ‘f you can believe it.”

She can, she thinks. Although… She would have to believe it either way; even if she thought she’d know better. There is something in her bearing that says _regal_ something in her that says _dangerous_ – and not merely because of the weapons she clearly knows how to wield, but because of her self-assured behaviour. ...The very same that high-born had when they’d walk into the taverns.

“Why are you here with us?”

The buck is skinned and she helps the girl hoist the beast up, tie it from a tripod the better to flay and use – they will eat well tonight; some likely better than they have for a while, and it’ll be thanks to this one.

“I want to guide you to Storm’s End”, the young thing says quietly, handing Esther a sharp tool that, at first, confuses her before she finds the other already carefully following the lines of the muscles in the meat. She’s had practice, she thinks, and that would make her a wildling or--

“Y’look like a Northron t’me”, she tries to wrinkle her nose the way she’s seen some high-borne do whenever they smelt something particularly foul, “Why’d you go to Storm’s End?” _Why would you bring us there?_

The young thing hands the first slab of meat over to a butcher who is already gauging where to cut to feed the most. She doesn’t stop her work when she replies, not even when the blood runs down her fingers and arms and sprinkles into her dusty, ash-dirty face. “I’ve a friend there. And I’d like to see at least those of you who want to go elsewhere to be safe.”

Esther thinks of the way she’d thrown the children onto the cart; the way she’d pulled even the panicking ones from the certain grasp of death before she’d whipped the poor mule in front of it and sent it running through the south gate. She thinks of the little body she’s grabbed from atop her horse in the last possible moment, white mare streaking through the gate with her dirty, ashen uniform curled tightly over the innocent thing of a blonde.

Later, when the men have found a river and she’s washed and cleaned herself of the blood, Esther sees the scars on her body, the ones that are not burns and the ones that are, she makes no secret of her looking either when the young thing catches her over the width of the river and the young thing makes no move to hide herself.

She’s Northron and highborn and a fighter to boot when she starts to wash off her jerkin and clean her blade with the rhythmic motions of someone who’s done it a thousand times. But she is also the one who sends two men packing when they try to grab for girls that are too young and unwilling. She’s the one who holds back the hair of the young ones who wail and vomit in their sleep.

She’s the one who guides them, in the days coming, from the heat and the burning pain into the slight drizzle and the grey skies.

Esther doesn’t think she’s ever felt a balm more soothing than the wetness that greets them as they emerge from the Forest in the Storm Lands. Even the little ones on the cart giggle hesitantly and when she looks back, the young thing is riding right next to them, a soft hint of a smile on her face.

 

–

 

“What’s your name?”, she finally asks that night. It’s been four days since they’d left King’s Landing and if she looks over her shoulder, she swears she can still feel the heat of the place that is still glowing, still burning. It would have to be nothing but embers now, but maybe Dragon Fire works differently.

The young thing is pretty, certainly. While she lacks the rolls and the dips that many men would prefer in tavern wenches, she has the gentle curves of a trained fighter, if it weren’t for her bearing and her clothes, she could have easily been one of the Flea Bottom rats with them, slender as a reed and twice as durable. But where most of them had known hunger for too long, she had obviously been fed and it showed in her strength, in her endurance – in the way her muscles coiled under the jerkin. When they washed, Esther would be un-shy about her perusal of the other, would look her fill, would glide her eyes over the long, slim legs, the round bottom, the slim belly and the soft, little breasts. She thinks any man would easily love this one for her beauty. But only a true man would love her for her strength and ferocity.

The young thing has been whittling away on arrows for some time now by the fire side, carving-knife easy and familiar in the palm of her hand and even the men have ceased their doubting of the young thing after this time. They don’t trust her – because there is something queer about her – but they know she’s stronger than them; and they know she knows where to go.

“What’ve you been callin’ me?”, she asks in return, lifting her shaft and holding it against the light of the fire to find imperfections – she balances it on one finger before she cradles it back towards her, giving Esther an expectant look.

“Young Thing”, she answers honestly and the woman laughs, openly, snickering as she rolls her head back into her neck before it returns to its usual place – it’s a laugh, Esther thinks, that has truly _bubbled up_ , like a wave rolls over a stone.

“I like that”, the young thing admits, still grinning.

“Yeah, but it’s not a name”, Esther shrugs.

For a moment longer, the young thing worries her arrow-shaft, balancing it again, before finding it satisfactory and stowing it away in a small bucket with the others. She hands the knife back to Old Tom, a young armourer’s apprentice despite his name, and looks back at Esther when she settles again.

“I’m Arya”, she finally answers over the orange glow of the fire between them.

“Family name?”, she’s certain the young thing must have one – but when the woman tilts her head, she smirks a little and laughs around the next syllables.

“Underfoot. Arya Underfoot.”

 

–

 

Arya tells her it’s been a week since their flight from King’s Landing when they settle down in a small bay of the woods a few leagues from Storm’s End. The young thing has taken a ride around to see if there were any other people around but has not found a town as she seems to have expected.

That evening, in the growing shadow of the burg she tells Esther is the Keep of Storm’s End, she announces their trek over.

“We can settle here.”

“Can we really?”, Marten wonders, a young boy that she knows has lost his mother and his sister in The Fires that have gone out over King’s Landing – she’s seen him watch over the little girls while they bathed, back turned to them easily and carefully putting his surprisingly large, if lanky, frame between the waters where the little ones bathed and the rest of the trek. He has a burn on his left arm that would have festered if not for their old gal – a woman who had given no name when Esther had asked and instead pushed the broth into her hands and waved her sit.

Arya shrugs in front of him. How someone so small can manage to command such attention from someone who is taller than he and undoubtedly a man is a mystery to her, but then, Arya Underfoot has a way around a weapon and she is not afraid of walloping the men that think their escape is an excuse to grope at whatever female is available.

“The Lord ain’t present and we’re far enough away. If you wanna go on there’s a few places another week from here but I think--”

Marten is already shaking his head. They’ve had enough walking and here is as good a place as any. The wood will shelter them until the first trees have been felled and their make-shift homes erected. Their trek comes to an end. Arya Underfoot stays with them.

 

–

 

Esther watches the young thing in the coming days, watches her retch and cough long before they break their fast, watches her ride out when the wolves howl and always come back with a kill that has teeth in its neck rather than an arrow protruding from somewhere, watches her bleed her hands raw over the tree-trunks and branches they heave from the forest to make into home. Their fires are small and barely enough to keep them warm, but none of them have the heart to make them any larger, any brighter or fiercer. They’ve had enough fire and even the young ones, collecting dry branches and the likes, take care around the flames. Esther doesn’t think that this is a fear that will leave them any time soon.

When another trek – smaller, wearier, dirtier and so much more pained – reaches them a few days in, Arya Underfoot is the one to walk through them, assessing them and easily picking the one Esther knows has had his fill of too young ones and too innocent ones one time too many. She goes to the forest with him and returns alone. None of them protest. It’s one less mouth to feed and Esther gives her a wet rag to clean the dirt off her slim, deadly metal.

The young thing retches in the morning and Esther is the one who takes the bowl off the old gal to tread carefully towards their fierce one at the edge of their camp.

“How long’ve you been dizzy?”, she asks quietly when she offers a jug of water to clean the mouth with.

“’bout a moon”, their young thing answers a little wobbly, accepting the water and rinsing her mouth with practised ease that tells of the truth of the matter. Esther nods.

“Been retchin' a little?” A nod. “Body a little tender? A little… well, a little too small for you recently?”, Another nod.

She hums softly and sits back on her haunches, waiting until their young thing sits back on her own accord, cradling her stomach as if waiting for another bout of nausea – the look she gives the stew is full of dread and knowing.

“You lie with anyone before all that?”

And the colour that has just returned to her cheeks suddenly vanishes from the face of their young thing and before she can answer, the other woman turns right back around and heaves around dry air. Esther knows she hears the groan right, and the swear.

“First one's always the hardest.”

 

–

 

Their young thing is with child and the old gal is quick to send the young ones for fruit and roots from the forest – Arya Underfoot remains still for half a day following the realization of her condition, before she accepts the tokens from the young ones and bounces right back into her place.

She is more careful in heaving the heavy trees and her riding becomes a little rarer, less hard. The wolves circle them by night, closer now than before, but still, when she goes into the dark of the woods then, she returns with a kill brought by the beasts.

The men fear this one, Esther thinks, when she comes back out of the woods, grey eyes glinting like the steel she swings in practised motions every evening, and a healthy buck with her.

Half a moon in, they stop fearing the song of the beasts around them and even Esther comes to appreciate their mournful throats as they howl to the Lady in the Skies.

 

–

 

A moon in, Marten returns from his watch on Storm’s End – all stumbling and gangly limbs, mouth running quicker than his feet could.

The Lord of Storm’s End has arrived.

For a brief moment, their young thing stills, steel eyes fixing on the burg in the distance, before she nods and claps him on the shoulder and puts him down to sit at the fires where he receives a large share of their stew and a rough blanket around his shoulders.

The light rain seems to never end around here and the winds can be harsh in the nights but their trail has come to learn to huddle together just so, warming each other and carefully keeping their hands to themselves. Arya doesn’t stop the willing from vanishing in the woods, but she also returns with bundles of herbs for their old gal now and again and the woman hums and nods over her pod when she takes them. Esther thinks it’s not a coincidence that the girls who’ve _gone to the woods_ receive a brew of those herbs on their next mornings.

Slowly their haphazard branches and tree-trunks carve out into proper shelters and a small, one-side-open hall that they all huddle into the stronger the winds get. It doesn’t allow for much privacy, and the old gal makes a habit of ordering the young ones to air the sleeping rolls out every second day while another bunch sweeps the ground free of undesired dirt, but it keeps them dry and relatively warm.

A baker’s apprentice sits for days on end, smashing acorns into a fine grind before they have their first, true, bread – burnt and dry as it is, but they laugh about their evening fires that day and praise the flushing boy over his skill and his dedication.

The lack of wine and ale has had the moods of the men blacken for several days on the trek but at this point they have gotten used to the heated and cooled water of their kettles – their group is easier for it, trusting more and cursing less. The second wave of trekkers had brought with them a small group of musicians and that night, when their fierce young thing has gone to the woods and returned with a buck that had been too heavy for her to carry, they pull out their instruments and Esther watches Arya’s eyes shine in the fire over the revelry that catches.

 

–

 

A moon later, the Lord of Storm’s End has still not made to erase their small camping from the edges of his forests and Arya Underfoot tentatively asks for more housing. Winter has passed and the trees are blooming, the weather is still mostly wet but their skins and furs from the catches they’d fed on is keeping them warmer than she can even remember being in King’s Landing – she feels like a wildling in her furs, but it’s the bow over Arya’s shoulders that really makes it.

And so, she asks for something else.

“Teach us how to fight”, she says bravely that night, “or how to defend ourselves at least.”

She has the pleasure of making Arya Underfoot smile.

 

–

 

Their first Green Wedding is celebrated a moon later, when a young couple comes before their young thing to ask for her to say the words to bind them. Arya has a look on her face that makes Esther laugh and the couple shuffle their feet, faces growing steadily redder, before she takes them into their common hall and has a talk with them.

Their entire group assembles before the single entry of the hall, waiting for the verdict of their young thing – still not any rounder than she has been a moon ago, but oh so definitely less queasy, Esther has been making strokes on some left-over leather to count the days of their young thing’s child bearing.

When the couple comes out of the hall, holding hands and blushing but smiling so prettily, the folk cheer – they are to be wed in the rites of the old gods because, true to her Northron blood, those are the only rites their young thing knows. But the ceremony is beautiful; Arya finding the tallest tree, finding two cloaks for the betrothed, young and old ones alike collecting the acorns for bread, hunting for the feast and digging up roots and plucking fruits.

Their feast takes place in the wee hours of the morning, when the ceremony has been held under the full moon – Lady of the Skies – and Esther thinks it’s a good omen to have her shine so brightly on the union of two of their young ones. The men cheer and the women clap and cry and when the sun rises on the next morning, the musicians take out their instruments. They shall get no work done that day except for the tiring of their feet and thinning of their voices as they sing and laugh.

It’s then that two new faces join their fray, quietly and stealthily enough that Esther takes a while to notice them.

Arya is sitting on top of a large trunk, cradling a tankard of sweet fruit juice to her, laughing and singing with the musicians as they sing the song of The Slattern, much to the enjoyment of the young and unbound women around their group who spring up from their seats and take the free place between the seated and the burning fire. She hadn’t known that their young thing knew the language of Flea Bottom, the _secret language_ , mind you and it should be at such odds for a high-born from the North, with all their foreign vowels and words, but Arya’s hair dances in the breeze of the dry day and her feet dangle as she joins the men.

 

_Danns' a luideagan odhar, danns' a luideagan odhar,_   
_Danns' a luideagan odhar, danns' a luid' odhar mhaol,_   
_Danns' a luideagan odhar, danns' a luideagan odhar,_   
_Danns' a luideagan odhar, danns' a luid' odhar mhaol._

 

It’s the tall one of the two of them who gives himself away because his eyes find their young thing and _stick_.

And Esther knows that look.

Oh their young thing could have had her pick of men – young and old alike – and might even have found herself one to rear the babe with her but-- This one looks at more than just the beauty that is their young thing. He smiles at the young one who hands him and his grey-haired companion a tankard of juice before he takes a seat, peacefully and harmless (she can not see a weapon on him but their young thing has taught her that this means nothing) and watches the young men join the dancing women.

The bride and the groom laugh and smile over the dancers, their hands clasped still in the tie that Arya had wound around their wrists earlier that night – they should all be tired but it’s been so long since they’d had anything to celebrate truly and the chance makes them giddy with energy.

He’s a right pretty lad, blue eyes and dark hair that she thinks look familiar, and there is a softness in the way his looks roams the form of their young thing, still pleasantly unaware of the new presences. Or playing at it – Esther is never too certain with Arya. But he is quiet, doesn’t interrupt, thanks the girls that bring him their bitter acorn bread and shares it with his old companion with a quiet smile that slowly spreads as he allows for the air to infect him.

When the song ends, he claps along with them, laughs at the dancers that stumble and laugh a little more, giddy with joy and the festivity.

He doesn’t stand, doesn’t talk, just sits. And watches Arya.

It’s the soot on his arms that gives him away as a smith, she thinks, the black on his brow where his old man is clean but weather-worn and she thinks he might have seen his fair-share of the sea. King’s Landing has had its fill of sea-faring folk and her eyes are not all that old yet. When the musicians make a break, it’s because Arya stands and raises her drink to the couple – Esther notes the tightness of her shoulders and the broadness of her smile, her eyes are tight. She’s noticed the new-comers.

But their young thing motions for the bride and the groom to stand and when they do, she hands the drum to the new-comer, carefully, cautiously. A hush settles over the folk, some of them noticing the new ones only now, but Arya bends to whisper something into the ear of the tall smith and he snorts a little, nodding as he accepts the drum stick from the musician as Arya takes another sip and comes to stand next to him. And Esther wonders, when the hand of their young thing lands on the broad shoulder of the smith, how she has come to know a man from King’s Landing, when he speaks for the first time.

“ _Níl aon leigheas ar an ngrá ach pósadh_ ”, he smiles in greeting and the men and women cheer softly, raising their tankards before the man smiles at the couple themselves, all bright eyes, shining and happy for them – a friend, she thinks then. She doesn’t know this man, but he is a friend. He wants them _well_. His voice is strong and smooth, carries easily, and his voice is warm. Their folk settle with another one from King’s Landing around them, another one from Flea Bottom. “ _Sláinte chuig na fir, agus go mairfidh na mná go deo._ “ The folk cheer again and when, this time, Arya‘s had settles on his shoulder, she is setting down her tankard right next to his.

And then their young thing starts to sing, in their language. Her voice is rough and, Esther thinks, she hasn’t had much exercise in singing – and how could she? A woman who has learned how to wield a sword and dance like a madwoman on the brink of death has had to fill her time with that, rather than stitching and singing. Might be the Lords and Ladies in the North worked differently, but she doesn’t think it’s all that different from the way she’s seen the ones in the South behave. The flute is the first to start at Arya’s nod and the smith, listens to the first two lines, before the stick hits the drum in rhythm and the corners of Arya’s mouth pick up as she forms her lips around the first words.

 

_Ribinnean rìomhach nighean an fhìdhleir,_   
_Còta dimitidh, beatagan cailleago,_

_Ribinnean rìomhach nighean an fhìdhleir,_   
_Còta sìod’ air Màiri._

The folk smile when the groom bends to press a kiss to his wife and their feet seamlessly fall into rhythm, scuffing the ground as they commence their first dance as a wedded couple. Their fiddle joins and in the next jaunt, the voice of the smith rises with their Arya’s – it’s deep and carries and melds unexpectedly beautifully with hers and that is when Esther starts to wonder.

  
_Brògan àrda, cleòca sgàrlaid,_   
_Còta dimitidh, beatagan cailleago,_

_Brògan àrda, cleòca sgàrlaid,  
Ribinnean rìomhach Màiri. _

 

The couple pick a young one and then a second and then a third and soon the folk are all a-dancing to the tune of the smith and their young thing, song carrying over their laughs, flittering into the air and the trees, when she is plucked from her seat by Marten’s hand, Esther thinks even the woods are dancing.

They have no bedding. Arya shakes her head when the men carefully wonder. Instead, they hunt the couple into the forest with laughs and clanking pots, jaunty jests and yips. The two of them do not return to their camp until the next morning, glowing and bright and happy and unafraid of the bonfires.

 

–

 

The smith comes to them on the day of a wedding and he doesn’t leave again. When the time comes to lay down, he doesn’t hesitate to make bed next to Arya who allows it and when Esther spies his large arm winding around their young thing in the dying light of their small, warming fire, she doesn’t fight him off.

She is small in his embrace, the next day, curled into a ball that he drapes himself around like the blanket of fur that he has given over to her in the night. When Arya leaves for the forest upon the calls of their wolves, he goes with her and heaves the heavy bucks that she cannot carry any longer the further she is along with child. He leaves for three days and returns with a cart, a horse, and metal. Nails for hammering into their homes, slowly becoming, hinges for their doors and metal for kettles that he hammers away on with a strength that Esther sees the Free Women stare at.

But he never does turn to them, not once, not even when the heat of his fires becomes unbearable with his clothing, and his black hair almost singes with it before he takes off his shirt. The soot and the dirt of his work smear and paint him and he laughs when their young thing props herself up almost lackadaisically on a trunk not too far from him and pointedly crunches on an apple. He whets her sword and the dagger on her and carefully tests their edges before handing it back to her, he fletches their arrows and pours their arrow-heads and when Arya, heavy now, but no less active, lines her children up to shoot their first arrows, he lines up right with them. He’s tall and unused to the weapon and his sheer strength breaks the bend of the first bow with a loud snap that makes Arya startle before she succumbs to such loud laughter that she crumbles in the dirt – it’s his befuddled look, Esther is certain, that does it, but when he walks past her to fetch another bow, he pokes her just a little into the shoulder, gently toppling her until she is still laughing, lying in the dirt.

For someone who had shown ferocity in the first moons she’d been here, the smith has a habit of bringing out the soft side of their Arya.

 

–

 

“Underfoot?”, he says softly when he hears her last name for seemingly the first time, and their eyes glitter when they meet over the glow of the fire, him biting gently into the leg of a hen Arya had shot earlier, among others, and her slurping the soft stew their old gal had been brewing for her almost all day. The retching has stopped in the mornings and her hips have filled out. Esther thinks she may not become big as she has seen many other women with child become, but it is natural for her body to accumulate weight in its child-bearing time. It is healthy.

“I’ve been to the North”, he smirks when he has chewed, “haven’t heard such a name back up there.”

Arya smirks. “Likely I’m the only one.”

The smith snorts and Esther thinks that she is missing something in the dialogue like one can miss a whole story when two lovers talk.

 

–

 

His name is Gendry and he’s the one who settles her on her horse and swings up on it right behind her before they take off for the woods, Arya’s ranting slowly becoming softer and dimmer the further they ride.

Marten shakes his head at their backs while the young ones are still staring at the giant smith who’d only sighed when Arya had almost decapitated the couriers from King’s Landing itself – then and there – for delivering The Queen’s message that she would welcome Arya Stark and Gendry Baratheon into her court. Esther is certain that most of them had learned a few new words before the smith had dropped his hammer, pulled Arya into his embrace and gently frog-marched her towards the white mare she’d first arrived on.

She’d still been ranting when they vanished into the canopy and all that Esther can think of is that… “She’s a Lady.”

That stops Marten.

“...He’s a Lord.”

And of course she’s heard stories of Arya Stark, the Nightslayer, the Dark Wolf, the woman who’d brought dawn, the Shadow of the North. They’d called her a ruthless assassin and a fierce fighter but-- She thinks back to _that day_ in King’s Landing and all she can think of is the blooded face of the young woman who’d thrown children into a cart, who’d pushed along folk until they were running for their lives instead of waiting for the flames; the girl whose eyes had cried for the smoke and for the dead; the girl who’d seen them safely to… to here.

Their camp is slowly growing. Is becoming a town. Is safe. In want for ale and wine, sure, but also in want of strife, rape, hunger and pain.

And then… And then anyone had heard of the Bastard from Flea Bottom, the last living son of Robert Baratheon, the boy who’d lived with them, been them, before he’d been pulled away and into the games of the higher powers that be. But he’s the smith who’s tanned their deer-hides until they could span them over their branches and make them tents. He’s the man who’s been holding up little ones so they could climb the trees and reach the fruit higher up.

Esther doesn’t doubt, too, that he’s the one who’d their Arya had chosen to lie with – she must have chosen; nobody can make Arya do anything and, truly, if the way she leans into him is any indication then there is fondness there that Esther has always been in awe of with the rare couple she’d seen in Flea Bottom that had married for their hearts and their souls rather than their tiny, empty coffers.

When they return, Arya has a crown of acorn-twigs and leaves in her hair and Gendry is rubbing the front of her belly on the horse, large arm easily slung around her while she holds the reins of their mare. He helps her off the horse before she takes a deep breath and floats towards the, still waiting, Queen’s messengers. They leave and do not return.

 

–

 

Nine moons after the Long Night – the night of monsters and terrors, the night that Gendry will only sometimes talk of to their men and their boys, the night that Arya gently and distantly explains to their young ones, Arya Underfoot goes into the woods. The moon is high and full when the howls of the wolves pull the folk out of their hut and, by the fire, stands Gendry, looking towards the forest, where Arya walks out, head held high, a tiny bundle clutched to her chest.

The girl is named Caitlin and Esther understands that is both in tribute to the mother of their young thing as well as their bastard smith who tests the name in the language of Flea Bottom; the celebration for their newest little one lasts a day and a half and Arya barely moves from the circle of arms that Gendry wraps around her. Esther thinks it’s a good omen that the Lady of the Skies had shone so brightly on the birth of their little one; she will have a prosperous life ahead of her.

 

 


End file.
